


first stanza

by klickitats



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Awakenings of the Sexual Kind, F/F, First Meetings, Weaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-26 15:49:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6246055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klickitats/pseuds/klickitats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Beast no blade could break came roaring, mountains slipped their winter gown,<br/>Tyrdda shouts to leaf-eared lover, “You I chose above a crown!”</em>
</p><p>A young Tyrdda Bright-Axe meets the Laughing Lady of the Skies for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	first stanza

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cathybites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathybites/gifts).



> I was inspired by a lovely prompt from cathybites on Tyrdda Bright-Axe and her ethereal lover, who they suspected was Mythal. I ran with it, which means I went for it with a little eldritch vibe. Hope you enjoy.

“Sit,” said Tauthe, arms crossed at the threshold of the hut. She was a tall woman, hands as broad as a bread loaf. She was married, once, before her husband struck her across the face after too much firewine. They said his body was buried shallow by the river bed, a courtesy for the wolves to pick his bones clean. 

Tyrdda cast one look at her, and one look at the loom patiently waiting under the eaves, and gave a sigh to rival the rumblings of a summer storm. “I’m muddy,” she said. It was true. The twin scars on her brown face were nearly hidden by smeared muck. 

“Your hands are clean.” The hut was just two mud walls and a thatch roof, a house for the loom and nothing more. She could smell the fire burning in the dwelling they called home—fennec on the fire, a warm bedroll waiting. “Sit.” 

Tyrdda dropped her axe over her shoulder. It stuck blade first into the soft spring ground. The drama did nothing to spurn her mother, who pointed to the seat and lit the thick, tallow-fat candle in the hanging lantern. 

“Let me do it at sunrise,” Tyrdda said. She rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Oman rode me all day like a dog.” Oman was Tauthe’s sister, and stood as chieftain for the tribe. 

Tauthe snorted. “You’re good for nothing in the morning.” She reached out and tucked one of Tyrdda’s braids behind her ear. A few of her braids hung loose from their usual knot, framing her face. “Standing and washing your face included.” 

Tyrdda plodded over to the wooden bench and flopped down upon it. It wobbled precariously—after years of being taken apart, strapped to a druffalo, and hauled across the plains, the loose leg of the stool was the loom’s only weakness. 

“Are you having trouble with the pattern?” Tauthe asked, examining her daughter to ferret out whether it was hesitance or laziness. They looked at the plain pattern of wide black-and-cobalt diamonds. Only a few lumps here and there. “You don’t seem to struggle.” 

Tyrdda only liked to argue when there was an actual argument to be had—and she’d never won a battle against her mother, much less a war. She turned to the loom and plucked the black yarn between her fingers. She twirled it back and forth, watching it unravel. 

“Ah,” said Tauthe. “You think it pointless.” 

“Absolutely,” said Tyrdda. 

Tauthe only smiled. It showed all her teeth. She didn’t smile often—a thick scar stretched from her temple to the center of her chin, and the stretch of a grin pulled at it uncomfortably. “You need to get better something that’s not killing bandits,” she said, “or shouting orders.” 

“That’s what a chieftain does.” Tyrdda began a new row of black. “If you want me to try other things, I should learn to butcher rams with Hadran. Teach the little ones to use a sling.” 

“Do it.” Tauthe rested a hand on the crown of Tyrdda’s head—her version of a kiss. “But your mind deserves a little quiet.” 

Then she walked the handful of meters back to the hut, and Tyrdda sat alone at the loom. 

The moon shone over the plains—full and silver as a river pearl. Tyrdda watched the smoke rise from the outlying huts. Not enough by far. The last winter left its teeth in the tribe. A touch of plague, too many wolves, and a gnawing affliction of bandits from the west thinned them. The latter, at least, was broken. Tyrdda held their leader by the hair herself when Oman cleaved his head from his shoulders. 

One row, and then another, and another. A familiar stillness settled in the pit of Tyrdda’s stomach. To sit at the center of the night comforted her. Not that she would ever admit it to her mother. Tyrdda had a reputation to upkeep—never slowing, never stopping, carried by the constant swing of her own axe. 

Four rows later and a cold breeze whistled through the hut. Two more rows and the lantern blew out. The moon light shone brightly, but not quite enough. Tyrdda turned and stood to light it once more, vowing to do two hand-lengths before she submitted to sleep. Her flint and tinder snapped and snapped against each other, but would not light. 

A shudder ran through the plains. Tyrdda had no other word for it. She looked up, and—just beyond the huts and fires, stood a being, swathed in starry night. 

Here began the part of the tale—should Tyrdda ever choose to tell it—where words began to fail her, just as the leg of the bench had begun to fail the loom. Jarring, misplaced, and not-quite-right. 

It was different than being speechless. She had lost all her words before. An alliance of two Avvar tribes had cornered a league of raiders in a wood two years ago. The raiders burned themselves alive in the forest rather than be taken, and Tyrdda had watched the trees burn, and burn, and burn. For hours. No screams emerged. That had left her speechless. 

Watching a doe kick for the first time, wobbling around out of its mother’s womb. That too. 

But there was a keen difference, precise and unnegotiable, between forgetting words and words losing their power, their shape, their purpose. They melted away, snowflakes caught on a warm tongue, upon the vision. 

It was impossible to look at her dead-on, at least at first. Her skin gleamed a cold slate gray, a peerless cloud lost in the rush of a night thunderstorm. Tyrdda thought her covered in night, but no—she covered herself in the plainest black robes, spun from coarse wool. The shimmering came from stars, long constellations stretching their backs along her flesh. Each of her breaths stirred them. 

Her hair, blacker than her robes and run with long streaks of white and grey, was piled sloppily atop her head, as though she’d just troubled herself to rise out of bed. Handfuls of it hung, long and smooth, down her back. The points of her large ears reminded her, too obviously, of tree leaves. 

Tyrdda did not realize she was moving towards her until she a mere meter away, and then she skidded to a stop. 

“Do you know how hard it is,” asked the vision, “to find you alone?” 

Tyrdda opened her mouth, closed it, and flared her nostrils. “I’m busy,” was all she had to say. “And I’m not a priest.” 

The lips of her mouth were so thin as to be nearly non-existent. They were fascinating as they curled into an unperturbed smirk. “What does that matter?” 

“Our teachings say you appear to the augurs,” Tyrdda told her, nearly light-headed at the strangeness. “And our priests, who interpret your will.” She straightened, arms folded across her chest. It never occurred to her to be afraid. “Be on your way to them.” 

A swift silence, and then the being laughed. 

It had the music of chimes and the slow roll of thunder. It grated on Tyrdda’s ears to hear it, but it vibrated in every bone, her heart thudding. If she could lean into that sound, close her eyes and fall inside it, she would have. 

“You’re a fool,” said the being, her blue-black eyes half-lidded in affection. 

Tyrdda said, “You’re Her.” 

And she did not deny it. There was no need to. Tyrdda had known it from the moment she saw her—an ancient woman, too tall to be mortal, wrapped in night. The Lady of the Skies. 

She did the only thing she could. She swallowed and said, “Isn’t this a little—obvious?” 

The Lady glanced down at her raiment, the constellations shivering on her exposed flesh with each breath. In the moonlight, flickers of silver and gold vibrated at her joints, the tendons of her neck, the high bones of her cheeks. She shrugged. “I forget how little the Avvar like dramatics,” she said. “With names like _Havar Wolf Eater_ and _Uraya Thunder Hair_ and _Tauthe Mountain Breaker_ , how could I?”

Tyrdda could not stop her nostrils from flaring petulantly. “Don’t insult my mother,” she said lowly. 

“I wasn’t.” The Lady smoothed her robes. The motion made Tyrdda reconsider her. It was a nervous gesture, even when a god did it. “You’re very serious for someone so young.” 

“And you’re very obvious,” Tyrdda answered automatically. 

Now it was the Lady’s turn to roll her eyes. They were unlike any mortal eyes Tyrdda had ever seen—a blackened night-blue, speckled with silver that shifted in an ever-moving pattern, rocked back and forth by an invisible tide, and too large by half. More than half. Her nose was broad, flat, and smooth as stone. No one in a thousand years would mistake her as mortal. 

But it made Tyrdda glad, just for a moment, to know gods could be annoyed. And petty. “What do you want?” she demanded. 

“To know you,” the Lady answered. Her eyes narrowed. “You catch my attention.” 

Something in her voice made Tyrdda’s stomach twist. The idea of being watched, observed, studied at arm’s length, like a peculiar stone or entrails being read by the augur—curdled her spirit. 

“That requires my permission,” Tyrdda said. “I do not want to be _examined_ by anyone, whether it be man, beast, or holy woman.” 

“Well,” answered the Lady, “I know you find great pleasure in denial.” 

Tyrdda’s nostrils flared. “You can’t make me agree, even with all your powers.” 

The Lady rolled her eyes again, and Tyrdda thought of black marbles, full of pinprick, scattering across the floor of a hut. “You are stupid, Tyrdda Ar Tauthe,” she said. “You have been talking to a god for ten minutes and never once has it occurred to you to _kneel._ ”

The Lady tried to berate her with the revelation, but it came out a little too awed at the end. The sound cupped Tyrdda’s heart like a hand. But she crossed her arms, planted her heel firmly in the dirt, and said, “Then you know nothing of me.” 

“Ha!” chortled the Lady. “I know everything of mortals. One part flesh, two parts pettiness, three parts pride. Simple as mud. You are no different.” 

“The gods revel in their own pride.” Tyrdda’s nostrils flared. “While engaging in just the same. The same pettiness, the same pride. Who else comes down in the middle of the night to argue with an Avvar axewoman?”

The Lady stared at her. “I only pick fights with the worthy.” 

“I am the same,” Tyrdda said, and knew both of their challenges to be true. “And if you fight with me, you are never beyond either pettiness or pride.” 

The Lady admitted nothing, only stared her down. 

“What else are you too good for?” Tyrdda wanted to bait her. In the midst of the argument they’d drawn close together, two pairs of feet headed towards the edge of the knife. “For pride, pettiness. For greed, surely. And the finer things?” She looked up into those starred eyes. “For happiness? For pleasure and affection? I suppose the gods look down on us and laugh, too lofty to even concern themselves with touch.”

It took both of them a solid moment to realize Tyrdda had thrown down a gauntlet between them. 

The Lady wrinkled her nose. She leaned down with a stubborn jut of her well-cut chin and pressed her their mouths together. She breathed into Tyrdda, and Tyrdda felt cold spiral down her throat, a humming rush that made all her skin shiver. It settled between her legs, opening her. She shuddered against panting breaths from an invisible mouth. The Lady’s eagerness left no inch of her untouched. 

Tyrdda was suddenly on the edge of release—from one kiss, from _one kiss_ , like a green and spoilt youth—and it took every moment of strength in her to push back against the Lady, to break their closeness, and run the back of her hand along her mouth. Her pulse throbbed between her legs. 

And then—the Lady smoothed her robes down quickly, glancing at her own hands. “I shouldn’t have,” she said. Tyrdda’s heart felt too full to beat. “Forgive me. I have never—not with one of your kind.” 

_Oh._ “No,” Tyrdda said, her voice raw with a held back cry. “No. It was just—too much.” They stared at each other. She licked her lips and continued, “I haven’t either. Not even—with my own kind.” It was nothing to bear shame over, but flush warmed the back of her neck besides.

The Lady looked at her squarely. “I watch you,” she said, voice oddly strained. “How well the people love you. Your unfailing strength. You fascinate me, how you surround yourself with others and yet always seem…” How bizarre, to watch a god search for a word. “Separate.” 

She trailed off. It was true. Tyrdda had many who would pledge themselves to her but few she trusted, and fewer she would call friends. But a fact remained. “I know,” she said. “But I have never felt alone. Not once.” Not in her entire life, she realized the moment her mouth shut. 

“Good.” Half a smile from that grey and beautiful face. Tyrdda was transfixed by it. “My eye on you means you never will be.”

Tyrdda wanted those lips on her again, even though the pleasure was so sharp it hurt. The Lady knew her heart and dipped her head once more, even as Tyrdda withdrew a little. “It’s too much,” she admitted. “You don't know how yet.”

“Then show me.” The Lady’s tone was too hoarse to hold the sternness of command. She licked her lips. “Please?” 

Tyrdda breathed once, and dropped to her knees. 

The Lady was at her side in an inhuman instant, long fingers pushing her back into the heather, until Tyrdda lay sprawled out under the sky. The Lady curled beside her and did not touch her, but for her breath against her ear. Tyrdda listened to that breath inhale and hold as she unlaced her breeches, shoved them carelessly to her knees, and slid a hand between her legs. 

She was wet enough from that one kiss that the rough callouses of her fingers were made smooth against her tender flesh. The pads of her fingertips pressed against her clit in quick, practiced circles. Release for Tyrdda was often just that: a way to slough off the dirt and tension for the day. How to fall into a thick, restful sleep, replete with brief pleasure. 

A breath tickled the soft patch skin under ear. 

“Slow,” murmured the Lady. 

Tyrdda inhaled through her teeth and obeyed. 

Pleasure, too, had always been silent. Gritted teeth against curious fingers. A hard clenched jaw against even the tiniest groans. But the watchful eyes of the Lady made sweat prickle at her temples, and the delicious press of pleasure between her legs—a pleasure that took its time—made a sigh escape her mouth. 

But the Lady was impatient. Tyrdda was quickly learning to appreciate this about her. Her frustration was nearly palpable—she would never be content to just watch. 

In a moment of boldness, Tyrdda raised her hand from between her legs, fingers wet and damp. They both gazed at them for a moment in the moonlight, before the Lady took her by the wrist and sucked her first finger into her mouth. Tyrdda’s vision faded to white and her eyes rolled back into her head. She came quicker than a gasp, the sensation a searing line between the way the Lady’s tongue, rolling over the pad of her finger and her cunt. 

She could not watch her second finger disappear between the Lady’s lips, and the heady feeling that accompanied it—a static fuzz that made her tremble. Her head spun. 

“Greedy,” she murmured, and the Lady’s chuckle rumbled through her bones. 

“But you give and give,” was the reply, and the Lady sat up to gaze upon Tyrdda with hunger. Her storm-cloud grey skin had deepened, a hurricane forming in the dead of night. Her fingertips trailed down the inside of Tyrdda’s arm, until one of her hands laid on her bared thigh. Tyrdda would never admit to quivering under that hand. 

“Do I taste of the mortal coil?” Tyrdda drawled, a lopsided grin on her face. 

“Salt and sweat and suffering,” the Lady answered her with a perfect roll of her eyes, and leaned down to spread her legs. The constellations on her skin thrummed with gold-white light. She lowered her head. 

Tyrdda inhaled sharply. “You think you can wring more from me?”

“Tyrdda,” murmured the Lady, “I mean to make you crumble.” 

The words sent shivers through Tyrdda, and nothing more. She nodded. 

The tip of her tongue along her cunt burned cold and electric. Tyrdda immediately raised her fist to her mouth and bit into her knuckles, a groan rasping in her throat. It was only delicate runs of the tip of the Lady’s tongue—barely touching, to be sure—but from each movement spun gossamer filaments of lightning traveling along her skin. She felt lines of golden light rise beneath her flesh, as though every vein, every notch in her spine was repurposed for pleasure. 

The Lady hummed in contentment as she lapped. _Burn,_ each torturous circle encouraged. Just as the sky must draw comets across the broad expanse of night, with careful lashes and precise sweeps, so she played Tyrdda. 

And it was tender. The Lady made sure the touch bordered the line of overwhelmed and overdone and never crossed it. Her eyes traced Tyrdda as she shuddered like a quake, admired how unspooled she became at the point of her tongue, and marveled at how their ravenous natures bound together here, as she knelt between her legs and served, and did not consume each other. 

Tyrdda came, arching against the ground and clawing at the dirt. A moan, battered through clenched teeth. The Lady held her steady, and her eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

When Tyrdda found herself again, the Lady was examining her thighs. Silver finger-marks stained her warm brown skin. Trails of starlight. _Do I bruise silver?_ Tyrdda wondered through the daze. The Lady frowned and twiddled her fingers, as though to command them to disappear through unearthly means. “Let them linger,” she breathed, and reached forward. Her hands pressed the Lady’s sky-dark fingers into her skin. Underneath, the silver glowed dully in the dim moonlight. 

“I—“ began the Lady, a hint of that nervousness displayed on her face. 

Tyrdda squeezed her hands. “Let them linger,” she repeated. “Let my skin know what I know.” 

Whether that was avarice or pride she did not say. But the Lady smiled, a pale glimmer of dawn.


End file.
